Mad as Helen (7 page)
Authors: Susan McBride
“
S
O
IT
’
S
TRUE
?”
Clara Foley asked, leaning over the table.
“Oh, it’s true all right.” Bertha Beaner nodded.
“Ding dong, the witch is dead,” Clara said and settled back into the booth, exhaling loudly. “Has anyone been arrested?”
“Mattie Oldbridge said the sheriff took Helen Evans’s granddaughter in for questioning.”
“Oh, my.”
“Well, he had to.” Bertha took a sip of her cola before adding, “She’s the one who found the body.”
“How was Grace killed?”
Bertha shrugged. “Mattie wasn’t entirely sure, but one can’t help but wonder—”
The door to the diner opened with a jingle, and Bertha Beaner stopped talking and glanced over Clara’s substantial shoulders to see Mattie Oldbridge entering the place.
“Speak of the devil,” Bertha murmured and lifted a hand. “Yoo hoo, Mattie!” she called and beckoned her over. “We were just talking about dear departed Grace. Seeing as how you live next door, well, we figured—”
“That you could fill us in on more of the details,” Clara finished for her.
Bertha gave her a look and muttered, “I was getting to it, for God’s sake.”
Clara merely shrugged.
Mattie glanced wistfully at the counter where a brown bag awaited. “I just came in to pick up a sandwich and soup,” she told them.
“Oh, come on, Mattie, spit it out.” Clara wiggled her fingers, the nails painted the same vivid pink as her muumuu. “You must know something more than the rest of us. After all, you’ve got a front-row seat.”
“Best seat in the house.” Bertha chuckled.
Mattie shifted in her LifeStrides. “I’m not sure I know anything more than I told Bertha here this morning.”
Clara pouted rosebud lips. “You didn’t see anything else going on next door?”
“No.” Mattie pushed at the bridge of her horn-rimmed glasses. “I haven’t been outside as much as usual. This past week hasn’t been an easy one, you know.”
“Of course it hasn’t, sweetie.” Clara sidled down the bench so she could reach for Mattie’s hand. “You must still be shaken after the break-in at your place.”
Mattie tugged her hand away. “I am.”
Bertha wrinkled her brow. “The sheriff hasn’t caught the thief?”
“No,” Mattie said, looking grim. “Whoever it is, he’s still out there, waiting to strike again.”
“I thought it was some kids from Green Valley,” Clara remarked, “or that juvenile delinquent Charlie Bryan?”
Mattie sighed. “I’m giving up hope that Frank Biddle will ever find who did it. I’m sure I’ll never see my precious things again. For all I know, they’re behind the counter of some pawnshop in Alton,” she added, eyes misting.
“And then to have Grace murdered just next door.” Clara clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Do you truly think Helen’s granddaughter had anything to do with it?”
Bertha cocked her head and listened.
Mattie looked from one to the other. “All I’m sure of is that Miss Sweet was the only one I saw go into Grace’s house since I watched Grace leave in her car the night before.”
“No one else went in or out?”
“I didn’t notice anyone. I was having a beer on the porch after supper. But it was getting dark and my program was coming on the TV. That one with the dancing stars,” Mattie said as Clara and Bertha both nodded. “There hasn’t been much of interest going on at the Simpsons’ place since Max moved out.” Her wrinkled face softened. “He was such a sweet man, but she treated him so badly. Sometimes they shouted at each for hours so I had to wear earplugs to get any sleep.”
“She and Max weren’t legally divorced, were they?” Clara said and tapped a finger to her chin. “I wonder if he’s going to collect all the earnings from her sordid book. . . .”
“Let’s hope that book never sees the light of day!” Bertha’s cheeks turned bright red. “If Grace hadn’t threatened to divulge all those secrets, maybe she’d still be alive.”
“Amen to that,” Clara whispered.
But Mattie Oldbridge said nothing. She just looked longingly at the brown sack on the counter again.
F
RANK
B
IDDLE
LET
himself into Grace’s office with a key from the ring in her purse. Her handbag had been found in her car, and it had contained her billfold, a tube of lipstick, a compact, her cell phone, and a handful of Kleenex.
Before he touched a thing, he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Then he groped at the wall for a light switch. The overhead lamp flickered on, and he looked around him, finding himself standing in a small waiting room. The walls were sparsely hung with framed prints of what looked like blobs of ink, like something someone’s kid might have done with black finger paint.
Chairs pressed tightly together lined the walls, with an occasional modern-looking glass table squeezed in between, its surface neatly covered with magazines.
Frank went through the door between the waiting room and inner office. He flipped on more overhead lights along the way. He first noticed a tiny kitchen set into a recessed spot in the wall. Or maybe “kitchen” was too fancy a word. It was more like a small cabinet on which sat a coffee machine, a tray full of creams and sugars, and a dozen floral mugs.
He opened the cabinet doors above to find office supplies, reams of paper, boxes of folders, and plastic-wrapped memo pads.
He walked ahead up the hallway, leaning into the opened door of a cramped-looking office. Was that where Grace had tucked Nancy Sweet? The space was hardly big enough for him to go inside and turn around without sucking in his gut. He decided to save that room for last.
Hitching up his belt, he continued past a framed poster of a staring Sigmund Freud to where a closed door blocked his path.
He opened it and stood inside the jamb, peering in.
So this was where Grace Simpson played headshrinker, he mused and let his gaze roam about. Sarah had told him it was nice, really fancy.
I think she must’ve had a real interior decorator from the city,
she’d remarked, her eyes wide as pennies.
So you’ve satisfied your curiosity, now you don’t have to go back,
Frank remembered telling her afterward. But Sarah hadn’t listened to him then any more than she ever did. Why his own wife couldn’t have talked to him instead of coming here, Frank hadn’t a clue. Maybe it was just one of those things women did that men never understood.
While her assistant’s office was little more than a closet crammed with file cabinets and desk, Grace’s domain was more the chamber of the queen.
The walls had been painted a rich cranberry, and the planked floor beamed with polish around the fringe of a plush, patterned rug. Behind slanted blinds, a wide window allowed an abundance of natural light in. The sunbeams glinted off gold frames mounted on the wall, the documents behind the glass stamped with seals and printed with graceful calligraphy.
Frank rubbed a hand over his head, ruffling the sparse hair that remained. Squinting, he took a look at each framed certificate, his lips moving as he read.
Bachelor of Liberal Arts in Psychology . . . Master of Social Work . . . Fully Accredited Member of the Psychotherapy Society of America.
There were half a dozen in all, enough to make Frank peg Grace Simpson as a bit of an overachiever.
There were shelves filled from end to end with texts, yearbooks, registers, and journals. He wondered if all the books were for looks or if Grace had read any of them. How much education did a person need to listen to people’s problems and give them advice? Frank usually found the wisest minds weren’t always the best educated but folks who had lived a hard life and learned from it.
A plush couch was positioned against one wall and above it hung a large unframed canvas that, to Frank’s untrained eyes, looked like someone had accidentally splattered with paint.
Was that supposed to be art?
He harrumphed and hooked his thumbs into his belt on either side of his belly. He wondered how folks made money off pieces like that when he had a drop cloth in his garage speckled with just as much paint though he doubted anyone would be dumb enough to pay him cold hard cash to hang it on their wall.
A coffee table in front of the sofa contained a host of brochures that had been carefully fanned out. Biddle picked up a few and noted they dealt with all kinds of topics like codependency, aging, stress, and addictions of various sorts.
A pair of armchairs had been situated on the table’s other side, the cushions comfortably worn.
But the sheriff didn’t share his wife’s interest in the décor. What interested him most was Grace Simpson’s desk, which faced him from its cockeyed position in the corner. The piece looked heavy, with carved legs and ball-and-claw feet. A leather chair sat directly behind it. Biddle went around and plunked down onto soft leather. He tugged futilely at each desk drawer but only managed to work up a light sweat. They were locked, and, at the moment anyway, he had no keys for them.
He took out his pad from his breast pocket and pulled the pencil from its spine. He gave the tip a lick for good measure and flipped to a clean page, where he wrote, “Ask N. Sweet about keys to G. Simpson’s desk.” He found no appointment book among the papers on her green blotter and figured her schedule was probably computerized. He jotted a note to ask Miss Sweet about that as well.
Frank didn’t see anything else lying about that warranted his attention, like client files or pages from the missing manuscript, so he tucked his pad and pencil back into his pocket, hiked up his belt, and headed for the closet up front that used to be Nancy Sweet’s office.
He squeezed inside the limited space between the wall of filing cabinets and the desk. He could barely turn around and had to suck in his gut to attempt to pull open the file drawers; but like Grace’s desk, they were locked up tight.
How, he wondered, could Nancy Sweet have worked here day after day and not felt claustrophobic?
When he tried the drawers to Nancy’s desk, they thankfully opened. Frank riffled through each one, finding only the most ordinary of things: boxes of paper clips, staples, rubber bands, rolls of stamps, stationery, a jumble of pens and pencils. If there had been anything of importance in the desk, it wasn’t there anymore.
Feeling defeated, Frank glanced above him then at a bulletin board tacked with countless Post-it notes. A number of them were addressed to Nancy, reminding her to pick up dry cleaning, to order St. Louis Symphony tickets, or to buy coffee and sweetener. The rest were for Grace, nearly all of them regarding phone messages from Harold Faulkner about her book.
He started to rise, but the space was so tiny that he got the leg of the chair caught on the wastebasket beside it, so that when he pushed back, he knocked the can over with a clatter. Trash spilled out all over his feet.
“Aw, damn.”
He put the wastebasket upright and began to pick up what had fallen out: a gum wrapper, a few discarded envelopes, and a crusty bottle of correction fluid. He flattened out two messages that had been wadded into balls. One concerned a dental appointment for Grace the next week. The second mentioned an attorney calling about divorce proceedings.
Biddle stuffed the latter in his breast pocket.
Then he smoothed out a piece of memo-sized note paper.
Dear Grace,
You are a hateful, small-minded bitch, and it was hell to come in every day and work for you. I hope your book fails miserably.
Sincerely,
Nancy Sweet
Interesting, Biddle thought, pushing back his hat and scratching his head. Was the note just a way for Miss Sweet to let off steam after Grace had canned her? If Nancy had truly intended to kill Grace, she would have been stupid to leave behind a message like that. Still, he folded the crumpled page and put it into his pocket.
He turned off the lights and locked up, rolling off the latex gloves and sticking them in his pocket. He was frowning as he headed back to his office.
Things weren’t looking good for Helen’s granddaughter, he mused. They weren’t looking good at all. She had some explaining to do, more than he’d heard as yet, thanks in no small part to Helen’s interference.
He’d get Nancy Sweet down to his office posthaste if it was the last thing he did, he decided, slapping his fist into his palm.
Only . . . only maybe he’d stop at the diner first and get something to eat. He figured interrogating a murder suspect was better done on a full stomach.
H
ELEN
SET
THE
cat food on the floor for Amber and watched him dive in up to his whiskers. Her twenty-pound tom had been pacing around her ankles and yipping at her ever since she’d removed a saucer from the cupboard. By the time she’d popped the top on the can, he’d gone bonkers. She wrinkled her nose as the smell of Salmon in Herring Aspic permeated the kitchen. It reminded her of the time she went to Florida one February at red tide.
She was rinsing her hands when she heard a gentle knock on her porch door, raps that fast turned more insistent.
“Mrs. Evans? Mrs. Evans, it’s me, Frank Biddle.”
Helen rolled her eyes heavenward or, in this case, attic-ward, wondering if the noise had awakened a still slumbering Nancy.
“Mrs. Evans?”
“Coming!” she called, muttering to herself as she wiped her hands on a dish towel.
She sidestepped Amber, who suddenly stopped gorging. He sniffed disdainfully and stared up at her as if to say, “You know, I’m just not in the mood for salmon in aspic. Would you pop the top on something else?”
“Not a chance,” she told him in passing.
By the time Helen reached the porch, the sheriff had the screen door half open and was poking his head in.
“May I come in, ma’am?” he asked. Before she answered, he entered, allowing the screen door to shut with a gentle slap.
“Oh, please, do come in,” she said wryly and, arms crossed, looked him over.
As always, Frank Biddle wore a slightly rumpled tan uniform, the belt of his pants hanging on for its life beneath a well-fed belly. He had his hat in one hand and smoothed down thinning hair with the other.
Helen didn’t invite him to sit, but that didn’t stop him from doing so. With a tense smile aimed her way, he ambled over to where a cluster of cushioned wicker congregated. He kicked out his dusty boots before him then cocked his head and said, “I figured that if the mountain wouldn’t come to Mohammad, Mohammad had better head on over to the mountain.”
Helen sighed. “I told you that I’d bring Nancy back down to your office as soon as she was fit. She’s still sleeping, and I’m not about to wake her up.”
Biddle shifted in his seat. “You don’t seem to realize, Mrs. Evans, that this is a murder investigation, not a sewing bee.”
Helen bristled. “I’m as aware of that as Nancy. But that doesn’t give you the right to harass the poor girl when she’s in a state of shock.”
“Point taken,” Biddle said, and he blushed. “But the first forty-eight hours are the most vital in a case like this, ma’am, and I don’t want to waste ’em.”
“Sheriff, I—”
“It’s okay, Grandma,” a soft voice interrupted. “I can talk now. Honest.”
Helen turned.
Nancy stood inside the opened French doors leading out to the porch. Though her face was still pale and her eyes were underlined with gray, she did seem calmer somehow.
She came forward in rumpled socks, with a white terry robe covering her from knee to neck. Her hands disappeared in the deep pockets. She smiled weakly at her grandmother before taking a seat across from Biddle and drawing up her legs beneath her.
“All right, Sheriff,” she said and sucked in a deep breath. “Fire away.”
Helen stood beside the chair and set her hand on Nancy’s shoulder, just to remind her granddaughter that she was there should she need her.
Biddle cleared his throat and gave his hat a final twist before he set it aside. “A witness heard you remark last night that you were mad enough to kill Grace.”
“Bertha Beaner,” Helen said and shook her head. “For goodness’ sake, Sheriff, Nancy was upset! And if I remember correctly, Bertha said she wanted to kill Grace, too—that Nancy would have to get in line.”
“Ma’am,” Biddle warned.
Helen shut her mouth, but it took some effort to keep it closed.
“Of course I didn’t mean it, not really,” Nancy replied, balling her hands into fists in her lap. “I was so frustrated with Grace. I’d worked my tail off typing up all her notes for her book, and then she fired me because of one mistake.”
“Did you go to her house and argue with her?” Biddle asked.
“No, she was dead when I got there.”
“I’m sure you didn’t go there intending to harm her,” Biddle pressed, “but sometimes emotions escalate and things get out of hand.”
Helen was ready to shout in denial, but Nancy beat her to it.
“No!” The girl fiercely shook her head. “No, it wasn’t me, I swear it. I didn’t go over to Grace’s house until this morning, right before I ran into you. Wasn’t she killed last night?”
Instead of an answer, Biddle asked another question. “Speaking of last night, where were you between seven-thirty and eight-thirty?”
Nancy glanced up at Helen. “I was home.”
“Alone?”
“Yes,” Nancy insisted. “After I had dinner with Grandma at the diner, I went back to my apartment and shredded Grace’s notes, pretty much all night, if you must know.”
“So no one can corroborate your story?” the sheriff asked.
“No one except the shredder,” Nancy whispered.
“Would you give me permission to search your apartment, Miss Sweet?” the sheriff asked. “If you have nothing to hide—”
“I don’t,” Nancy said and got up, disappearing inside for a bit and returning with her purse. She reached inside and plucked out a key chain. Her fingers shaking, she worked one key off and handed it to the man.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Biddle said and tucked the key in his breast pocket.
Helen chewed on the inside of her cheek, fighting to stay quiet.
“Speaking of keys . . .” The sheriff leaned forward and set his forearms on his knees. “I was over at Ms. Simpson’s office this morning, checking out the place, and I couldn’t seem to find the keys to any of the file cabinets or to Grace’s desk. Since those keys weren’t on the ring found in her purse, I thought you might have them.”
“Sorry, but I don’t.” Nancy sighed. “Grace didn’t want those keys to leave the office, so she had me hide them.”
“Where?”
“They’re in the box of staples in my top desk drawer,” she said.
Biddle pursed his lips. “Did she have an appointment book?”
“Yes, an old-fashioned one,” Nancy told him. “She liked to make her own appointments, and she didn’t like storing that kind of information on the computer. It should be in the left-hand drawer of her desk. That was where she kept things of importance.”
“One more thing and then I’ll leave you alone for now, Miss Sweet.” Biddle reached inside his breast pocket and withdrew several slips of crumpled paper. He smoothed the first one out on his knee and passed it across to Nancy.
Helen squinted at it from over Nancy’s shoulder. It appeared to be a pink memo of some sort.
“What do you know about divorce proceedings?” Biddle asked.
“You mean Grace’s divorce from Max?” Nancy handed the note back and shrugged. “It was moving pretty slowly, I think.”
“So this lawyer, Filo Harper, he’s the guy handling things?” Biddle said and put the note back in his pocket.
“Yes.” Nancy twirled a strand of hair.
“Was Max putting up a fight?”
Nancy stopped fiddling with her hair and sniffed. “I wasn’t Grace’s confidante, Sheriff. All I do know is that she was impatient to get things rolling after, like, a year of separation. She said she’d waited long enough to get him out of her life. That he’d gotten all from her he was going to get.”
“Which means?” Biddle asked, and his brow furrowed.
Nancy threw up her hands. “I have no clue! Like I said, I worked with Grace. We weren’t best friends.”
“You’re a bright girl, Miss Sweet,” the sheriff went on, looking cross. “You must’ve picked up on more than what Grace told you directly.”
Helen still had her hand on Nancy’s shoulder, and she felt her granddaughter stiffen.
“I didn’t spy on her, Sheriff, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”
“Let’s look at it another way,” Biddle said. “Did her husband ever come by to see her at work?”
Nancy exhaled slowly. “I guess he did, maybe once or twice.”
“Did they seem to get along?”
The chair creaked as Nancy wiggled against the wicker. “He cheated on her, Sheriff. Everyone in town knows that. It’s why they were divorcing. So knowing how Grace likes to hold a grudge, I’d guess they probably didn’t get along very well. Are you really through with me for now?” the young woman asked impatiently. “I’d like to take a long, hot shower and try to forget this morning altogether.”
“Just one more thing,” Biddle said and passed her the second piece of paper, which he’d smoothed out on his thigh. “Did you write this?”
“Oh,” Nancy whispered, shoulders slumping, and Helen squinted to see. “How did you get that?”
The sheriff stared, unblinking. “I found it in the wastebasket by your desk.”
This time, Nancy held the note for a long while, staring at it wordlessly before she turned her wide eyes up at Helen and then back at the sheriff. “I didn’t write it for anyone to see. I was just letting off steam.”
“Sure you were,” Biddle murmured.
Over Nancy’s shoulder, Helen read the message which began, “Grace, I despise you!” Oh, dear, she thought and swallowed, tightening her grasp on Nancy’s shoulder.
“Surely, Sheriff, you don’t think . . . ,” Helen started to say, but Biddle raised a hand, stopping her.
“I’d like Miss Sweet to explain, if you don’t mind, ma’am.”
“I-I was angry,” Nancy stammered. “I know it was a silly thing to do, but it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Under other circumstances, no, it wouldn’t,” Biddle agreed and reached out to take the paper back, though Nancy seemed reluctant to release it. He folded it and tucked it back into his pocket.
Helen had had enough. She let go of Nancy and came around the chair, her gaze narrowed on the sheriff. “Really, Frank Biddle, you can’t actually think that silly note means she intended to kill Grace Simpson!”
“Your granddaughter was found at the scene.”
“A mere coincidence,” Helen said dismissively.
“Her fingerprints are on the murder weapon.”
“Of course they were! She told you she picked up the bat.”
The sheriff stood. “Grace Simpson’s neighbor, Mattie Oldbridge, said Nancy was the only one she saw entering Grace’s residence.”
“Please!” Helen snorted. “Since she was robbed, Mattie’s inside by dusk with her doors locked and all her shades drawn.”
“She says your granddaughter looked fit to kill . . .”
Helen felt her cheeks heat up. “You know as well as I do that someone else could have been there before her. Grace could have been murdered hours earlier. For heaven’s sake, Sheriff, she was probably dead since the previous evening. She must have been, or else she would have gone to her dinner meeting in St. Louis.”
Biddle tugged his hat back on his head. “So maybe your granddaughter stopped by Grace’s last night, argued with her, hit her with the bat, and left her on the floor in a panic. Maybe going by the next morning was an attempt to cover her—”
“Stop it!” Nancy sprang out of her seat. “Just stop it, the both of you!” She held her hands out in front of her, pleading. “I didn’t do it, Sheriff, and that’s the truth, whether you believe it or not. Everything happened just the way I told you it did. I don’t have anything to gain by Grace’s death, nothing.” She dropped her arms to her sides then drew in a deep breath. She lifted her chin, but her quiet voice shook as she said, “Look, if you want to find out who killed Grace, why don’t you go after someone who might have benefitted. Like those clients of hers who’ve been making threats on the phone, afraid their dirty linen’s going to be aired in Grace’s book. Why don’t you start with the people who were gathered in front of LaVyrle’s.” Nancy met Biddle stare for stare. “Like your own wife, for instance.”
“My wife,” Biddle repeated.
“Yes, she was there,” Nancy snapped. “So was Bertha Beaner, not to mention a couple dozen others. People who’d had enough sessions with Grace to fear their cases might end up in print.”
“The book,” Biddle said, changing the subject. “Do you happen to know where she kept that thing?”
“You don’t have the manuscript, Sheriff?” At his silence, Nancy let out a
tsk-tsk
. “Grace had the only hard copy with her. She had me save it to a flash drive, which I gave back to her yesterday morning. If you find it, you should read it”—she paused and stuck her hands in the pockets of the bathrobe—“unless you’re as afraid as everyone else that your deep, dark secrets are on those pages.”
With that, Nancy padded away in her stocking feet, going back into the house. Helen heard her footsteps creaking on the stairs until all was quiet again.
Biddle started walking toward the door.
“Did you get the answers you wanted, Sheriff?” Helen asked. “Or did you end up with more questions?”
“Good day, Mrs. Evans,” he said and nodded in a manner that was little more than cursory.
Helen watched through the screens as he got into his muddy black-and-white, the car spitting out gravel beneath the tires as he took off, leaving Helen to stare after him, a worried frown on her lips.
S
HERIFF
B
IDDLE
’
S
VISIT
left Nancy visibly shaken.
Helen found her upstairs, sitting on a corner of the bed. She had her knees pulled to her chest, and she was gently rocking herself. She looked up as Helen stopped at the top of the stairs before crossing the room to sit beside her.
“He thinks I’m guilty,” Nancy said, and Helen could see she was fighting to keep the tears from her eyes. “He thinks I did it.”
Helen settled an arm around the girl and squeezed. “Well, he’s wrong then, isn’t he?” she replied. “Someone else must have been at Grace’s house between the time she left LaVyrle’s and eight o’clock, when she missed her dinner meeting. Despite what evidence Biddle seems to think he has, there’s more to this than meets the eye.” She forced a smile and patted Nancy’s leg. “Don’t fret, sweetheart. The truth will come out. It always does.”
Even if I have to drag it out myself,
Helen left unsaid.
